"Mrs Brown is a portrayal of what's real and the audience can sit back and relax. They don't have to suspend disbelief."
Mrs Brown Rides Again comes with the usual warning that it "contains strong language, not for the easily offended". There is no denying the sauciness of Mrs Brown, but O'Carroll points out she is based on real characters, the female market traders in Dublin's Moore Street.
"The extraordinary thing is that the stalls all sell the same things and the women are pretty rough and take no prisoners. There is no such thing as the suspension of language."
Dublin women also tend to marry young. "They get married at 19 and become 40 immediately, have kids and raise a family. Then, when they are 40 and the kids are doing their own things, they become 16. You get these women of 40, 50 and 60 talking like teenagers and coupled with colloquial language you are going to get something quite extraordinary - like Mrs Brown."
O'Carroll is the youngest of 11 children, five brothers and five sisters. His father died early so the biggest influence was his mother, who became the first woman to be elected to the Irish parliament, known for her ability to speak, often disarming opponents with humour and sarcasm.
Initially, Mrs Brown was a radio series written by O'Carroll. When the actress due to play her failed to turn up on the first day of recording, O'Carroll was forced to take the role, planning to use an actress to re-record the dialogue later. When one of the recording crew asked later where he found the actress playing Mrs Brown, as she was very good, O'Carroll realised he could do it himself "and it was another wage I didn't have to pay".
Putting her on stage was a different matter. Now he had to look like her. He shaved off his moustache and asked make-up artist Tom McInnerny to work on the look, refusing to look in a mirror until he was finished. The key to the character was her walk, he thought, "always struggling but seems to get there". He finally walked towards a full-length mirror in full costume and realised he was looking at Mrs Brown.
On opening night in Cork, he finally revealed his look to the rest of the cast. "It's now in the lap of the gods and the audience," he told them. "Everything was riding on that show and we killed them," O'Carroll reports. The stage legend of Mrs Brown had been born.
* MRS Brown Rides Again at the Liverpool Empire, January 16-20.
